by John Conroe
“The procedure is not complex, but I find it easier to just put the instructions in your head than to try and explain them with words. Just go to the room, and you’ll know exactly what to do. Again, it is not complex, but it is extremely difficult. The power from the Tear will flow through you to the gate. It will be taxing on your body and your mind, but the hardest will be on your soul. The emotions you will feel must be kept in check or you will want to quit. That’s the gate protecting itself; it will also draw on the Tear. Despair, frustration, uselessness. These will wear at your motivation. If they win and you stop part way through, the gate will reopen larger and it will pretty much drain your essence to do so. You will die… painfully. That’s about it. Like my tee shirt?”
I didn’t answer for a couple of seconds, still thinking about the whole drained-essence-death thing. He watched me, waiting for an answer.
“Yeah, kinda hits close to home,” I finally said, looking at the monstrous image that looked to be exploding from his chest.
“Yes, that’s it exactly. Your dark half ripping out to rain God’s Vengeance down on His Foes,” he said happily, looking inordinately pleased with himself.
“Is that what I do? It feels like I just go from one chaotic nightmare to the next, never really knowing what the He… the heck I’m doing. I’m always behind the curve, reactive, not proactive.”
“Oh, you mustn’t despair, Christian. You are very, very new to all this. You’ve barely begun to crawl, let alone walk or run. It will all come in time. Yahweh is pleased,” he said. “The most important thing to focus on now is making the right choices.” He looked at Stacia as he said it, smiling faintly at her even though she couldn’t see him. She frowned at her cell phone as she launched a grumbling red bird from an oversized slingshot at a smarmy pig on her display.
“She is another marvelous addition to the cluster you are building. In fact, she may play a truly decisive role, but she is also a chance for you to fail if you misstep. The complexity of it all makes closing the gate look like simple child’s play.”
“Oh, that’s reassuring,” I said.
He studied me for a moment, puzzled. “Is that… sarcasm?”
“Yup!”
“I may have to copy that as well, although I don’t think I’ll try it on Michael. He is prone to what you would call ass kicking. Maybe Gabriel. He’s a bit cerebral; it’ll bug the crap into him!”
“It’s bug the crap out of him,” I corrected.
“Really? Are you sure? Oh, of course you’re sure,” he said as I gave him a deadpan look. “Well, that’s about all I have to offer you.”
“Thank you, Barbiel,” I said, getting up. “Come on, Stacia. We got a crime scene to check out.”
Without looking up from her phone, birds, and pigs, she slid over to the other opening of the pew and got out. Then she headed out of the church, finally putting her phone away but not so much as glancing my way. Uh oh.
'Sos and I headed after her, catching up just as we left the building. Her head was up and looking forward.
“What’s up?” I asked. She glanced my way, eyes hard, but didn’t answer.
“Stacia, what’s the matter?”
She climbed into the passenger seat of the Volvo while I held the back door for 'Sos. She still stared straight ahead while I climbed behind the wheel.
“I don’t like being judged,” she said, staring straight out the windshield. “Not by high school kids or horny men or even God’s own angels!”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Your angel doesn’t like me. Thinks I’m bad for you!”
“Actually, he does like you. Thinks you’re a major part of my life’s mission. Where do you get the judge thingy? You couldn’t see or hear him.”
“No Sherlock, but I could see and hear you just fine. You introduced me and then were immediately talking about choices. And your tone was defensive, so he was making judgements. I don’t need his approval!”
Wow, women are so much more perceptive than men! I wouldn’t have got any of that. Of course, she was only half right and refused to believe me about the part where he thought she was important and special.
“Couple things about Barbiel. He’s still learning about humans and our world, so he gets a lot of stuff mixed up. His main mission is to pass me messages and give me guidance with stuff like demon portals and God Tears and shit. He believes that Tanya and I have been together before this life and belong together now. He always has. He sometimes slips up and calls us by other names. So yes, he’s a teeny bit biased, but he thinks you are extremely special and important.”
I figured it was best to come clean and just tell the full-out truth, rather than try to convince her of anything else.
She glanced sideways at me and, despite the hard set to her mouth, I could see the brightness of barely withheld tears in her eyes.
“That smelled like the truth. Thank you for that. But I’ll tell you this… you may have been with her before but I plan to be the one you’re with at the end!,” she sniffed. “What names does he call you?”
“He calls Tanya Lailah. I’ve been called Malahidael.”
“Those names sound… old.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What did you find out about them?”
“About what?” I asked, uncomfortable.
“Hello? The names?”
I shrugged. “I never researched them,” I said, studying the GPS’s directions to the crime scene.
She just looked at me, then pulled out her phone and did stuff on it.
I concentrated on driving.
Chapter 11
Agent Krupp and her shadow, Agent Mazar, approached us from their government issue sedan which was parked on the opposite side of the street from ours.
“Nice car. Somehow, I didn’t picture you driving a Volvo… wagon,” Agent Krupp said by way of greeting.
“It’s borrowed.”
“Yeah, belongs to the Lupine Group. Hey what’s with all these investment groups?” she asked. I raised my eyebrows in question. We were just getting out of our car on the street across from Greenfields restaurant in downtown Asheville.
“Your… partner? She works for this Lupine Group, LLC. Granger heads up something called Phase Integration, LLC that seems to be more like an investment club mixed with a commune, and Simon Masten used to have a bunch of so-called employees for a corporation named Blue Moon, Inc.”
“Lupine is a diversified corporation. Owns a chain of sporting goods stores as well as other properties. I know the principals, and they referred me to Granger’s company. Other than that, I think you should ask Stacia,” I replied, hooking a thumb in her direction.
“What do you want to know, agent?” Stacia asked.
“Lupine refers to wolves?” Agent Mazar asked, speaking for the first time.
“It can. It also refers to Lupin plants,” Stacia said.
“But your company prefers the wolf part, no?” Mazar asked. She had an accent. Middle Eastern, maybe Israeli.
“Actually, we like both. The company started as an outdoor store, so what better to appeal to the woodsy masses than wolves? Eco-lovers see the wolf as a symbol of endangered species. Hunters see it as a strong predator, worthy of respect. But the plant part? Lupin is a foreign plant that spreads like crazy. Our corporation likes to spread as well,” she noted with a wolfish grin.
Both agents held their poker faces, but their scent smelled slightly frustrated.
I was looking the restaurant over. It was an older, two-story brick building that had once been a home. It was in cherry condition. The front door was the main entrance, but a sign next to a paver pathway that wound around the left side of the property indicated a patio bar and seating out back. The whole property was enclosed on three sides by a six-foot brick wall that matched the house. To the left of the wall was an apartment building and on the right side, a florist shop.
I looked at the property for a full minute, w
aiting for a vision to strike. Nothing. They don’t always hit, and only on supernatural crimes. Or I should say, crimes committed by supernatural beings. Since this was a crime on a supernatural critter, I was probably on my own.
“Any flashes of psychic insight there, Gordon?” Krupp asked.
“Only that it must be hard to sleep in those apartments when there’s a band at the patio bar,” I noted. Krupp just glared at me.
Car doors slammed as four other members of her BAU team got out of another vehicle. Agent Dison was in front, followed by the other three from the bar.
“Gordon and Reynolds, these are agents Dison, Briton, Connor, and Lyle,” Krupp said. Agent Briton was the blonde female and Lyle was a tall, ginger-haired male.
I nodded at them and returned to my study of the restaurant. My nose picked up the smell of old blood in the alley to the left of the restaurant and next to the apartment building. I headed that way.
The crime scene tape was long gone, cleaned up when the site was released by the crime scene investigators days ago, but I easily found the death spot by sense of smell. It was up close to the outer side of the brick wall but not right against it. Stacia, Awasos, and I all looked it over, with 'Sos being the only one who could sniff freely without attracting attention. After all, that’s what wolves and dogs do.
“So he died here? Facing the wall. How was he killed again?” I asked.
Krupp exchanged glances with the big guy, Dison, before answering.
“He died from a single gunshot wound to the head. Bullet entered his throat, traveled through the larynx, and lodged in the brain stem. Death was near instantaneous,” Agent Lyle said.
“No one in the restaurant or the apartment building heard anything?” I asked, thinking how difficult it was to kill a werewolf with a single shot.
“No, and there was no band playing that night,” Agent Briton replied.
“What caliber? Handgun cartridge likely,” I said, thinking to myself.
“Correct. .357 caliber, 158 grain semi-wadcutter, lead,” Briton said.
“Any casings?” Stacia asked.
“No,” Lyle answered her instantly. Lyle and Connor were standing just slightly behind her, both trying not to get caught staring at her.
“So, one adult male, killed by a close contact, suppressed, low-power revolver round that wasn’t, in all likelihood, fired from a revolver. Bullet expertly placed for an instant kill,” I noted. “Tell me, was there a contact burn on his throat?”
Agent Lyle looked at his iPad. “Yes. Also, small particles of paper were embedded in the skin.”
“Paper? Really? Can I see a photo of the crime scene?”
Lyle just turned his tablet so I could view the screen, which showed the man’s (werewolf’s) body lying close to the wall. From that angle, anyone standing up against the wall would be completely hidden from the restaurant.
I backed up to the apartment building and looked over the wall at Greenfields. Only the upper floor windows were visible.
“The victim, Charles Wilton, left his companions at their table and went to the bathroom, which is on the second floor. Second window from the rear of the building,” Agent Briton said, pointing. “Staff remember seeing him come down the back staircase and going out the patio bar door.”
“Like he saw something or someone that caught his attention on the way to the men’s room and came out the back way. Looks like whoever shot him was backed against the wall, with him crowding close. Then they capped him under the chin with a suppressed weapon,” I said.
“Why did you say the weapon wasn’t a revolver, Gordon?” Krupp asked.
“Come on, Agent Krupp. You know revolvers are almost impossible to suppress. The gap between the cylinder and the forcing cone of the barrel lets too much gas out to properly dampen the sound. Hey, were the paper particles brown or tan?” I asked.
“Yes, brownish, why?” Agent Dison asked.
“I’m just speculating, that’s all.”
“Why don’t you speculate out loud,” Krupp growled.
I looked at her for a minute, then shrugged. What the hell, why not.
“It sounds like the cartridge was handloaded to a softer level of power and sound. A standard hardcast semi-wadcutter .357 will blow right through a man, not lodge in the brain. I’m thinking you’re dealing with a murder weapon cut down from a single-shot rifle or even a pistol-caliber lever-action carbine.”
“Sounds homemade. How would they suppress it?” Krupp didn’t sound too surprised, but then, they would likely know the weapon from the marks on the recovered bullet.
“Well, I’ve heard of someone patenting a device that screws on the end of a threaded barrel that lets you mount a car oil filter. Oil filters are almost ready-made expansion chambers, complete with paper baffles.”
“Which would leave paper particles on skin,” Briton finished for me. I nodded.
“An oil filter?” Krupp asked, sounding intrigued.
“Yeah, the killer probably welded a threaded receiver to the muzzle of his or her cut-down rifle.”
“So how would he get the victim to hold still long enough to stuff this foot-long gun under his chin and shoot him precisely in the brain?” Dison wondered.
Good question. I checked the ground right up against the wall for shoe marks, but it was clean. Standing up, I caught a whiff of something from the bricks of the wall itself. Perfume—unknown brand—not anything I’d smelled before. It was about head height for an average-sized female.
“Tell me about the victim?” I asked.
“You know you come at this more like a cop than a psychic?” Connor questioned.
“I told you—I’m not really much of a psychic,” I said.
“But you used to be a cop,” Mazar said, suddenly.
I ignored her comment but instead sat back and looked at the rest of team, waiting for someone to spill the details. Lyle finally broke down.
“Victim is one Cody Charles, born and raised just outside of Pikesville, Kentucky. Age twenty-seven. Court records for his early teens show a pattern of petty juvenile misdemeanors. Brought up on assault charges at eighteen, plea bargained down to probation. Further assault charges for beating up five guys in a bar at age twenty-four, but the charges were dropped. None of the vics would I.D. him. Suspect in two rape cases but again, no identification by the victims. All in all, a real charmer,” Lyle said.
So based on that, it looked like he was Turned by age twenty-four, which is why he could beat the crap out of five guys. Abusive and criminal. Just the kind of guy you want to have the lethal abilities of a werewolf.
“What about the other victims?” I asked.
Briton answered, “Similar rap sheets. Assault, rape, lack of witnesses willing to testify.”
“So Cody boy gets up to hit the men’s room, spots something out the window that intrigues him enough to leave the building but not worrisome or he’d call his crew. He backs the killer up against a brick wall, then obligingly holds still while she shoots him.”
“She?” Krupp asked sharply.
“Yeah, I’m thinking our killer is a female. Cody the ladykiller spots a hottie out the window and heads out to engage. Using his killer charm, he backs her up against the wall. She’s obviously no threat to a tough guy, so he doesn’t see the weapon she’s holding till it’s too late. Maybe it’s in a bag or something.”
“The unsub is a female? Picking off all the male members of this pack of charmers one by one?” Dison said, more testing the question out loud than looking for anyone to answer. He was trying to sound surprised, but he didn’t smell surprised. I was telling them stuff they already knew.
“Maybe this group wronged the killer—raped her or a family member, and she wants revenge,” Stacia said. The team looked like they had forgotten about her, which kind of floored me. Forget Stacia? No way.
“What? It’s what I’d do. I’d hunt the fuckers down and castrate them, then kill them if they hurt my mom or me,” she
said fiercely.
The men looked a bit wide-eyed at her ferocity, but I noticed Briton nodding her head slightly in agreement.
“Kyle, Briton—go back through all the victims' histories. Look for any unsolved crimes that they may have in common. Include Simon Masten and the other one that’s still alive—what’s his name? Bo?”
“Yes ma’am, Bo Morrison. We’re on it,” Lyle said, glancing at the blonde Briton and getting a nod back. They headed back to their vehicle, pulling phones and laptops as they went.
